A fourth volume containing one hundred and fifty sermons on several texts of Scripture…

III. To show the Difficulty of this Denial of deadening, suppressing and hindering the Execution of worldly Lusts. There are many things which will solicit for Lusts, and plead hard; so that we have need of a great deal of Grace to give them the Denial; there's Nature, Custom, Example, and Satan.

III. To shew the Difficulty of this Denial of deadning, suppressing and hindring the Execution of worldly Lusts. There are many things which will sollicite for Lusts, and plead hard; so that we have need of a great deal of Grace to give them the Denial; there's Nature, Custom, Example, and Satan.

1. Nature, that is strongly inclined to close with worldly Lusts; a carnal and worldly Disposition is very natural to us, as for a Stone to move downward, or Fire to move upward: Now the Course of Nature is not easily broken and diverted; if it be hindered a while, it will return again. That these worldly Lusts are rooted in our Nature, is clear from many Scriptures. Ever since Adam turned from the Creator to the Creature, he hath left this Disposition in all his Children that come of his Loins, that their Hearts hang off from God toward the Creature: The Nature we have from Adam is a carnal Nature which savours and affects things that are here below: And therefore it is the great Work of Grace to cure this Disposition, to take us from the World; first our Hearts, then our Bodies: It is made an Effect of the new Birth; 1 John 5.4. Whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the World. And 2 Pet. 1.4. By which we are made Partakers of the Divine Nature, having escaped the Corruption that is in the World through Lust. Heavenliness follows Grace; there is something Divine, a higher Birth than that we receive from Adam, else we should live as other Men do. There is the Spirit of the World, and the Spirit of God; now natural Men are endowed with the Spirit of the World; they use their Souls only as a Purveyor for the Body, to turn and wind in the World, to feed high, to shine in worldly Pomp, to affect Honours and great Places; these things we learn without a Master; we bring these Dispositions into the World with us. Therefore to deny worldly Lusts, is to row against the Stream, to roll the Stone upward, to go quite contrary to the Course and Current of Nature. When the Apostle speaks of the new Nature, he calls it, a putting off concerning the former Conversation, the Old Man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful Lusts,